Green Products Brighten Multifamily Rehab

An abandoned inner-city building gets a second life as a ten-unit affordable cohousing project. What's more, the makeover used green products and materials and energy-efficient building practices and appliances.

In Chicago's south side Woodlawn neighborhood, new home construction, condo conversions,and multifamily rehab are becoming common sights in an area long marked by vacant lots and abandoned buildings. Despite such growth, the need for affordable housing in this neighborhood remains great,as poverty continues to challenge the community, and longtime residents fight displacement from gentrification.To meet this need, an innovative project has grown from a partnership between a nonprofit housing developer and a state agency. The Woodlawn Development Associates (WDA), a nonprofit neighborhood housing group, completed the rehab of an abandoned 11,694 ft2 three-story masonry building this past February.The building had been abandoned for six years and was in need of major, or gut, rehab. WDA planned the rebirth of this abandoned building as a ten-unit affordable cohousing project, but it also wanted energy efficiency to be an integral part of the rehab.In addition,green materials and products were substituted for their conventional counterparts. The project was literally topped off with a 2.4 kW photovoltaic (PV) system on the roof.The goal of the project was to plant a green ...